


Raise the Roof

by Tabithian



Series: Ordinary Ways [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently Tim's the kind of smart that skips a couple of grades, gets him thrown into the lion's den with a slab of meat tied around his neck and left to fend for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise the Roof

**Author's Note:**

> :D?

Apparently Tim's the kind of smart that skips a couple of grades, gets him thrown into the lion's den with a slab of meat tied around his neck and left to fend for himself.

“Okay, no,” Tim says, looking up at Jason with an annoyed look on his face. “I can actually handle myself, thanks.”

Jason snorts, thinks about the punks who were loitering around Tim's locker earlier that day who'd pretty much turned tail and ran when they saw Jason.

“That doesn't count,” Tim says, like he knows what Jason's thinking. “You were carrying that freshman who broke his nose in gym class.”

Jason's still trying to figure out how the kid managed it, they were running laps around the school's track. Nice and flat, made out of synthetic rubber, and the kid had bitten it on a straightaway, no one close enough to trip him up. 

Somehow, though, maybe natural talent, the kid had gone down hard. Broken his nose with blood everywhere. Jason had scooped the kid up and headed for the nurse's office because everyone one else including the gym teacher had been useless.

“And?”

Tim just looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“Christ, okay,” Jason mutters, slouching low in his chair.

Tim rolls his eyes. Looks down at his notes, and then back up at Jason. 

“Not that I mind,” he says. “But why are we doing this again?”

This, being Tim tutoring Jason.

“Well, clearly,” Jason says, gesturing at himself. “I am a no-good delinquent who is terrible at this learning shit, and you - “

Tim groans, drops his head on the table. “Stop, for the love of God, stop.”

“ _You_ ,” Jason continues, leaning forward to make sure Tim doesn't miss this, “are some kind of child genius prodigy who will pull me out of this dark hole of idiocy I've managed to dig myself into.”

Tim lifts his head to scowl at Jason. 

“You missed a week of school,” Tim says. “I got all your homework for you, and took notes in the classes we have together. I'm pretty sure you can catch up on your own.”

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

“Take that up with Mrs. Tunstall.”

Still old and cranky, and she seems out to get both of them.

Thinks Jason's destined to flunk out of high school with his attendance issues and attitude and that leather, oh my. (Dick finds it hilarious that his jacket is giving Jason this much grief, and, really, so does Jason.)

As for Tim...who knows what Tunstall thinks about Tim. Maybe that he's another rich kid brat too smart for his own good and making Tim tutor Jason is fitting punishment for all his perceived sins.

Which.

Jason doesn't know, really. 

“You missed a week of school,” Tim says again, as if that means anything anymore. “You just need to catch up, not. This.”

“I don't know,” Jason says, gives Tim's notes a skeptical glance. “I mean. Look at me, I'm obviously deficient.”

Tim props his chin on his hand, little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You're definitely something all right.”

********

“Jason - “

“No,” Jason says, ducks around Dick to get to the Batcomputer. “You're not running a background check on Tim, okay?”

Bruce is bad enough, but Dick - 

“I'm _concerned_ ,” Dick says, in a tone of voice that says he's giving Jason shit for the sake of giving him shit. “You're my precious little brother, Jason. What if this Tim kid is a bad influence on you?”

Jason freezes, turns to look over his shoulder at Dick.

Tim. 

The kid who spends his lunch in the library when he can get away with it, which. Fine, okay, Jason can't blame him for that one considering the alternatives. The kid who is tutoring Jason, even though they both know Jason doesn't need it. So really, they just do their homework together or talk about books and television shows or other nerdy things. The kid who goes to Jason's teachers to get his homework and other assignments when Jason misses school because _reasons_.

 _That_ Tim being a bad influence.

Dick has that horrifyingly earnest look on his face, the one that's all about being a good big brother, and certainly not some kind of jerkface, goodness no.

“I worry,” Dick says, places a hand on Jason's shoulder, and leans in. “Kids your age, you're so _impressionable_.”

Dick gives Jason a little shake, and how he's able to keep a straight face, Jason doesn't know.

“Jason,” Dick says. “What if he tries to get you to try _the drugs?_ ”

“Did you get dosed by something before you came over here?” Jason asks, slapping Dick's hand away. “I mean, it's either that or you're a complete jackass.”

Dick affects a hurt look, hand pressed over his heart. “Such language, Jason. I knew that Tim kid was no good.”

Jason sighs, looks over to where Bruce is watching all of this happen and not doing a damn thing to stop it.

“Your kid's an asshole.”

Bruce sighs. 

“Both of them are, yes.”

********

Jason rounds the corner and sees Tim backed up against his locker, some beefy looking football player up in his face.

Thinks, _oh, shit_ , and starts to double-time it over there, but Tim.

Tim's eyes narrow and he pushes back into the jock's space, says something too low for Jason to catch that has the jock backing off fast. The jock's little circle of friends giving ground along with him.

There's a little murmuring ripple among the kids gathered around to watch, and Jason's strongly reminded of the damned Hallway Incident that had gotten him and Tim detention. Hopes there's going to be less hair-pulling and high-pitched shrieking.

“Is there a problem here?”

 _Oh, shit,_ Jason thinks again, and turns around to see Headmaster Hainey striding down the corridor towards them.

Hears a little sigh from Tim, resigned.

“Drake started it,” the jock says, loud and obnoxious and Jason wonders how it's even possible to be that much of a cliché.

Hainey looks at Tim.

At the jock and his buddies.

The rubber-necking students.

 _Jason_.

“Is that true, Mr. Drake?”

“No, sir,” Tim says, a note in his voice that says he doesn't expect to be believed. “I didn't.”

Hainey hums, eyes going back to the jock who has this disgustingly smug air about him. 

And the thing is, this isn't the first time Jason's happened on little scenes like this. The jock or his buddies, or some of the popular kids who have parents with major pull in Gotham who think that translates over to them, and _Tim_.

Tim, who never blinks, never backs down.

“Detention,” Hainey says. 

Waits a beat, mouth curving slightly when the jock looks to his buddies, smug little smirk on his face.

“For you, Mr. Harbeck, and your friends.”

There's a stunned silence.

“Sir?”

“Mrs. Tunstall will have the details for you.” 

Hainey smiles, makes a show of checking his watch. “I believe all of you have places to be right now, don't you? Class to attend? Otherwise detention is going to be quite full for the next few days.”

There's a frantic rush to be anywhere but there as the other students rush to avoid a stay in detention with Tunstall.

Tim slips through the mindless horde and grabs Jason's arm, pulls him along with him with a hissed, “Come on, come on, the last thing I need is another detention, oh my God, _move_.”

********

“Okay, seriously,” Dick says, pushes Jason's shoulder. “What gives?”

Jason is.

He's.

“You're a jerk?” Jason hazards, closes another file. Thinks about closing _all_ the files, but that would probably be a bit suspicious.

“Debatable,” Dick says, leans against the console facing Jason. “You know I was kidding before, right?”

Jason drags his attention away from Bruce's files and focuses on Dick, who actually looks a little guilty.

“Okay, but,” Jason says, slow. “You're making the mistake of thinking I actually listen to you when you talk? I mean, who does that?”

Dick's _face_.

“You little punk.”

Jason smirks, spreads his hands. “It's a gift.”

Dick kicks a foot up on the chair's arm rest, swivels the chair side to side just the tiniest bit.

“Something wrong?”

And now he's serious, little frown between his eyes as he glances up at the monitors, sees Bruce's files on that Drake kid.

“No?” Jason says, gives Dick a helpless little shrug at the look that gets him. “Tim's like. Bully bait, I swear.”

Dick snorts, leans over so he can reach the keyboard and clicks through a few of the photos Bruce has of Tim. (Such a creeper.)

“He's the one from the other day?”

That time Jason flipped out a while back, yeah.

“Kind of small,” Dick says.

Jason sighs, smacks Dick's foot. “He skipped a few grades. I think he's, you know. Five or something.”

Dick snorts, looks at Jason from the corner of his eye. “Smart, huh?”

Jason scowls. “Too smart, actually.”

Like. 

Scary smart, really.

Tim will give him these little looks sometimes, head cocked like he wants to say something.

Jason's just starting to realize he tends to get those looks after a rough night on patrol with Bruce or Dick, or the times when he misses school because _reasons_.

And Tim.

He really is smart, probably too smart for their stupid school, but he just shrugs when Jason brings it up.

“He's tutoring me, what do you think?”

Dick stares at Jason.

Says, in a carefully controlled tone of voice, “He's doing what, now?”

Oh, shit, Jason didn't mention that to him yet, did he.

Jason can see it starting, the way Dick's trying so hard not to laugh in Jason's face. The eye crinkle-thing, Dick biting his lip, face turning a hideous blotchy red.

“Oh my God, just get it over with,” Jason mutters.

Closes his eyes and listens to Dick laughing his ass off, and wonders if he could get away with pushing Dick off a building on patrol later. (Maybe if he presents it as some, who knows, training exercise to Bruce. He knows Bruce thinks about doing the same thing to Dick from time to time.)

********

“Come on, it's not worth it,” Tim says, moving to stand in front of Jason. 

Puts his hand on Jason's chest, light, a request.

Jason looks at him for a long moment, gaze sliding past him to that Harbeck kid and a couple of his buddies. All of them looking a little shocked that a runt like Tim could give them a run for their money when pushed far enough. 

Not like Tim was winning, exactly, when Jason showed up, but. He'd gotten a few hits in, gotten that asshole Harbeck good, knocked him back a couple of steps. Enough to let Tim get out of the corner he was backed into, and Christ, Harbeck really loves pulling that shit, doesn't he?

He might even be getting smarter, catching Tim on his way back from the photography class darkrooms after school let out, not a lot of adults around to put a stop to things. 

Jason feels a little flash of guilt, because if Tim hadn't been messing around in the darkrooms waiting for Jason to get out of detention, this wouldn't have happened. 

...Or maybe it would have happened anyway, some other day when Jason wasn't around, and. He's going to stop thinking about that or he's going to do something he'll regret. (Probably regret, anyway.)

“I can see that,” Jason says, eyeing the swelling around Tim's eye that's going to be a spectacular shiner later on. “Where did you learn to fight?”

Tim shrugs, stooping to gather his backpack and textbooks he was carrying. 

“Bugged my parents for lessons when I was younger,” he says, flashes a smile at Jason even though he has a split lip. “The movies always made it look cool, so you know.”

Jason looks at him, and Tim.

Jason can't get rid of the nagging feeling that Tim was. That he wasn't really trying all that hard, with Harbeck and his cronies, just. 

What. 

Buying time? 

Stalling?

The little shit just smiles at him, cocks his head. “You okay?”

Jason.

Is _Jason_ okay.

“You're a goddamn trouble magnet, aren't you?”

Tim _looks_ at Jason. 

“Really.”

And there's.

There's something in Tim's face, the little smirk that's not quite there yet.

“Shut up,” Jason says, because yes, okay.

“I mean,” Tim says, letting Jason nudge him along, hand in the small of his back. “There are so many things I could say here right now? I think there's something about pots and kettles, but I could be wrong?”

Christ. 

********

Dick is getting on Jason's last nerve right now. Bruce isn't much better, and really. Jason's pretty sure Tim tutoring him is not meant to be some kind of spectator sport.

Clearly it was a mistake of epic proportions to drag Tim back to the manor, Jason feeling a little uneasy about letting him out of his sight because _Tim_.

Dick and Bruce being busybodies who just had to be in the manor's library this very moment. (And maybe, maybe, it has something to do with Tim's black eye and split lip and Jason's simmering anger, but still.)

“So, Tim,” Dick says, leans in close to Tim, who pulls back with a little frown on his face. “Tell me about yourself.”

Tim darts a look at Jason, who mouths, _run, Tim, run and never look back_.

And Tim, the little shit. 

“I think I remember seeing you at one of the charity events my parents hosted when I was younger,” Tim says instead.

Tilts his head, like he's remembering, thinking back.

Dick makes an interested noise, leans a little closer, and Tim.

Tim snaps his fingers. Points at Dick and says, like it's amazing and fantastic and something _not_ to be ashamed of, “You were the one with the mullet.”

Bruce chokes, giving away the fact that he is not, in fact, deeply invested in Russian literature and is actually eavesdropping. (He's _Batman_ , Jason knows he can do better than this.)

Dick looks like a really unattractive fish, one of those deep sea things with the blank, soulless eyes, mouth opening and closing.

Tim smiles, wide eyes and total bullshit and it's just so goddamn fantastic Jason can't stand it.


End file.
